Another Greek rendering of th; is dyairriro!, and this is found in the LXX of Gn 2'2-, whence the same word has found its way into 2 P 1" and into Mt 17=, IMk 9' (' my beloved Son') ; in ||Lk G^* the best MSS have iK\(\ey/M^voi, 'chosen.' Bat the LXX has fiovoyfvrjs in Jg IP' (Jephthah's daughter) and To 3" (Sarah, daughter of Raguel), and Aquila seems to have used it in Gn 22- (Hort, 'Two Dissertations, p. 49). The Latin renderings are unictts and unigcnitus ; the former seems to be the older of the two {DCG ii. 281).
2. Meaning as applied to our Lord. — It appears to the present writer to be clear that in Jn. liovoyevrii refers to the pre-existent Sonship of our Lord : ' God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world' (1 Jn 4'). Our Lord is Son in a unique sense ; we by adoption, He by nature (see Adop- tion). ' The Divine essence was so peculiarly communicated to the Word that there never was any other person naturally begotten of the Father, and in that respect Christ is the only begotten Son of God ' (Pearson ; cf. Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. x. 4 : ' He is called Son, not as advanced by adoption, but as naturally begotten '). The emphasis on the first part of the word is the same as that on eavrod and iSiov in Ko 8"- '^ ('God sending his own Son . . . spared not his own Son ') ; in these phrases St. Paul has an equivalent to ixovoyiviit.
The above is the universal interpretation of the title by the Fathers from at least the time of Nicrea onwards, though other views were held in certain heretical circles. But was it the earliest interpretation ? It is certainly the fact that ^01-076^^5 was not much used by the writers of the first three quarters of the 2nd cent., as far as we can judge by their very scanty remains ; but Justin uses it occasionally (e.q. Dial. 105 : ' He was the only-begotten of the Father of all things, being begotten in a peculiar manner Word and Power by Him, and havin" afterwards become man through the Virgin'), and it is found in the Martyrdom of Pobjcarp (§20). The Valentinians in the 2nd cent. used it for their seon Nous ; they certainly treated the Only-begotten of Jn. as a pre-existent Being, but they took the particle ' as ' (ws) in Jn 1" as ex- cluding the complete identification with Jesus (see Swete, op. cit. p. 26). The title took its place (probably c. A.D. 150) in the old Roman Creed — in the Greek form of the Creed as fiovoyii/ris, in the Latin form as unicus — perhaps as a protest against the misuse of it by the Valentinians. In some Western forms of the Creed, however, it is absent. F. Kattenbusch [Dasapost. Symbol, 1894-1900, and DCG ii. 281) holds that 'unicum' was originally meant to go with ' Dominum,' but in view of the VOL. II.— 8
Johannine use this seems improbable. Later in the 2nd cent. iJ.ovoy(vii^ is constantly used by Irena'us.
Harnack asserts {Das apostol. Glaiibcnshekcniit- niss, ed. 1892) that in the Roman Creed the title refers only to the Incarnate Life, not to the Pre- existent Sonship. This is certainly not the case with Justin (see above) ; and Aristides allirms the preexistence of the Son of God (' He is named the Son of God most High ; and it is said that God came down from heaven, and . . . clad Himself with llesh, and in a daughter of man there dwelt the Son of God,' Apol. § 2, ed. Harris [TS i. 1 (1891) 36]). The earlier Fathers taught that before the Incarnation our Lord was Son of God {e.g. Ignatius, Magn. 6, 7 ; Smyrn. 1), and did not, like some contemporary heretics, limit the Sonship to the human life. But they did not at first adopt the technical word ' generation ' for the communication of the Divine essence to the Son. Here we have an excellent example of the change in the use of technical theological words, of which hypostasis furnishes another and a later example. Ignatius says {Eph. 7) that our Lord was 'generate and ingenerate' {yevfrtrbs Kal d7^w7;Tos)^generate, that is, in His humanity, and ingenerate in His Divinity ; ' generation ' as used by Ignatius has an earthly sense, whereas by the time of Justin and Tatian it had acquired a heavenly one (cf. Swete, p. 28). What Ignatius means is that our Lord's humanity is created. His Divinity is uncreated ; and, as Lightfoot shows (excursus in Apostolic Fathers: ' Ignatius ' =, ii. [1889] 90 ft'.), he sub- stantially held the same views as the Nicene Fathers as to the Person of Christ. In the later writers Christ is said to be d7^i'i)Tos in His God- head— there never was a time before He came into existence ; but He was not dyivpTtTos. In His Godhead he was yeyvrjrSs, ' begotten ' ; the Father alone was dyiw-qTOi, ' unbegotten.' But this dis- tinction was unknown to Ignatius. It is also an example of the fluid state of theological termin- ology that some 2nd cent, writers speak of the pre-existent Christ as Spirit (pseudo-Clement, 2 Cor. § 9 : ' Christ . . . being first Spirit, then became flesh'; cf. Hermas, Sim. v. 6, ix. 1, and Lightfoot's note in Apostolic Fathers : ' Clement,' ii. [1890] 230) ; and that even in the 3rd cent. Hippolytus speaks of the Incarnation being necessary for the perfect Sonship of our Lord, although, when unincarnate, being perfect Word, he was Only-begotten (c. Noet. 15).